Majestik Møøse

This thing wouldn’t be operational until 2025 or so. Does it still make sense then?

I’m not sure you got the gist of my post.

People don’t have fun in the MAF because it’s run by Chiefs, wanna-be Chiefs, support officers, and some rated guys that pander to all of the above. Life in garrison is dominated by bureaucrat queep and non-support, so any fun doesn’t start until you’re at least 69 tacans away from the MOB, and only then if you have a good crew. This was life at Travis 5 years ago, for me at least. Sq/CCs, in unison with the OG, once reminded aircraft commanders that they were still responsible for checking their .mil emails on the road daily, just in case someone required an immediate answer for some queep. You’re in crew rest? In Thailand? With only your personal laptop and CAC reader you stole from DOV? Well we need quarterly award bullets from 2 of your boom operators yesterday, and by the way we all hate you because we’re still in the office. When I was there, the thought of Travis AFB, and by extension its AD flying squadrons, generated a near-Pavlovian wretching action associated with non-stop, no-gain bureaucratic queep churn. There was no squadron morale, and certainly no desire to hang out for any amount of time in the building when the emails slowed down enough to allow it. The U-2 is a complete 180 from that. The MOB is fun, FOLs even more so, the flying is rewarding and fun, and the work is all to make things actually better.

Had a T-6 solo party/naming, T-38 transition party, T-38 naming. Our class were all friends, most of the IPs seemed to give a shit, so everybody had a blast. We had a few prior WSOs/radar navs in our class, so we were read in on “this isn’t a real naming, but we’re going to act like it anyway.” The couple of classes before us didn’t really like each other, so they probably hated all those parties, if they even had them at all. YMMV. Never force a party. Also don’t be the asshole that’s too cool for a party if everyone else is into it.

A great example of the “single storyism” that wins the influencing battle in modern culture. One airman says “pilots act like frat boys”. One person is offended by a name that didn’t stick. An IP feels like he is pressured to drink. Each story is only one of a possible 4,300 human experiences at Laughlin (0.02% of the total base population), but that single story will rule the narrative if a report writer can spread it to the masses. The tyranny is that, if one hundred people are interviewed, any conclusion can be cherry picked from the pile of words. It’s not scientific, and it’s not democratic. It’s reminiscent of Pravda or China Daily, where the approved messages are sitting on shelves waiting for the right anecdotes to flesh them out. ”Power is the ability not just to tell the story of another person, but to make it the definitive story of that person.”

“It is calculated using a proprietary weighted formula that looks at responses to three different questions in the U.S. Office of Personnel Management’s Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey.” This is compiled using .gov civilian input only. I’d imagine the VA has better morale because there are no bag wearers pestering them to do their jobs. Context...

Of all the things they could’ve changed, they chose to make Captains bars brown. Jeebus.

War machines. I wonder how today’s perfect-on-paper Air Force leadership would handle those kinds of losses.

“According to the CDI, the compact disc was discovered when a vehicle driven by an "other country national" was inspected as it entered the base. The disc was later turned in to officials. The suggestive material prompted an investigation.” Here’s a CF. Don’t be sloppy.

Holy shit it’s Join Spouse, not Joint Spouse. Mind blow. https://www.afpc.af.mil/Assignment/Join-Spouse-Program/

This will test the two of you. Some career combos seem to be easier for mil-mil. Pilot+MX, Pilot+Intel, hell, Pilot+anything other than another Pilot. Here’s the rub: every pilot wants to fly particular kinds of jets out of UPT, especially if they’re good enough to have the opportunity to choose. You say you’d do anything for you spouse? That it’d kill you to be apart? And when you’re at the top of your class and she’ll be lucky to escape with wings (or vice versa) and your Flt/CC offers you the choice between an X-Wing and Space Shuttle, what then? Will you choose love over your dream job? If it works out that you’re both in a jet and location you enjoy, great. Otherwise, I think the road will be a little painful.

The airlines have greatly benefited from being able to hire experienced pilots from the Air Force. They get a $10m guy with no cost to them. It isn’t good news for the airlines when the Air Force gets on the back side of that production curve. The hiring wave has already overtaken the military’s ability to feed it, so the airlines will either have to train their own guys or hire less experienced pilots. So it’s a problem for “management” across the board, but the pilots are in great shape.

Plus the time it takes the gear doors to close, which probably feels like an eternity while the jet is accelerating in AB.

So how fast is gear over speed in a Raptor?

The story may be real, but that picture is a shitty photoshop.

Glad I’m not a jailer. The list of “glad I’m not a” jobs is getting pretty long these days.

Good info. Were you there? The rumor mill that Air Force pilots perpetuate on this kind of stuff puts the spouses’ club to shame.

2x namings for my class, one in each phase. No outsiders/phones allowed in and doors were locked. Multiple female students/IPs there whose opening move was to go extreme early, which set the boundaries for the night. Was fun/funny as hell for all and a good bit of stress relief that had us at points nearly passing out with drunken laughter at the expense of both us and our IPs. There were actual fighter pilots involved and this was nearly 10 years ago, so maybe that’s the difference. Fuck I’m old.

Is he open to all demographics?

That’s the piss tube.

Looks like a worn out pair of mechanic overalls.

You guys are actually picking potential UPT bases based on suitability for flying ops and livability, lol. First figure out which Senator is due for a win, then sort by which base is losing a current mission.

...

So here's the funny part. While we all say we need more money to stay in and put up with the Air Force's queep, we'd also jump at the chance to volunteer for an ALR Extreme mission where we'd see a high likelihood of being killed. Most of us have that strange self-actualization trait that makes flying into downtown Hanoi seem more desirable than living in a faceless bureaucracy.